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Education

12:42 pm

Wed November 9, 2011

Last month, Tyra Banks and the national Get Schooled Foundation visited 400 students in the Bronx in New York City. Banks is one of several celebrities who record messages encouraging kids to go to school. And Seattle is one of the latest cities to try it out â€” Mayor Mike McGinn's office is spending nearly $50,000 to coordinate and implement the effort.

Kids aren't usually eager to wake up and get to school in the morning. They might be, though, if their favorite musician or professional athlete called to coax them out of bed â€” or if a shiny new bike were on the line.

At least, that's what adults in Seattle think. So the city has a new plan to improve school attendance.

Isaac Bennett, 16, lives a few houses down from his high school in north Seattle. Yet the junior didn't make it there very often last year.

"I had like 167 absences for sophomore year, which wasn't good," he says with a laugh.

Following the exit of producer Brett Ratner from the upcoming Oscars telecast yesterday, Eddie Murphy â€” whose new film Tower Heist is also Ratner's latest directorial effort â€” has stepped aside as host of the 2012 show, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today.

The Two-Way

11:35 am

Wed November 9, 2011

The fact that former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's 2001 biography was called Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story, is generating some pretty pointed commentary on Amazon.com this week.

Middle East

10:49 am

Wed November 9, 2011

Conflict between supporters of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (shown here Sept. 22 at United Nations headquarters in New York) and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is among a number of factors that analysts say are weakening Iran's position in the region.

A new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency presents more evidence than ever before that many aspects of Iran's nuclear program are geared toward military purposes. Yet some analysts argue that overall, Iran represents less of a threat today than it did a year ago.

The IAEA report issued Tuesday largely focuses on historical matters, and some observers say Iran is still having a great deal of difficulty in many areas of weapons technology. And it's clear that Iran has experienced several other setbacks in recent months.

Italy crossed into bailout territory today. The interest rate on the country's 10-year bonds, which has gone through the roof in the past few weeks, rose to over 7 percent.

We've seen this story play out before in other European countries.

A country is in debt trouble. Investors demand higher interest rates to lend money to that country. Paying those higher interest rates mean the country will fall even further into debt. So interest rates go up even more.

The Two-Way

10:15 am

Wed November 9, 2011

[The alleged mastermind of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole was seen today for the first time in nine years during an arraignment in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It's the first test of the Obama administration's revamped rules for military commissions. NPR's Dina Temple-Raston was there.]

When Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri walked into the Guantanamo courtroom this morning, he was all swagger.

Politics

9:57 am

Wed November 9, 2011

The first birth control clinic in the United States opened in 1916. It was operated by Margaret Sanger, who started the clinic after becoming outraged that she couldn't give her patients â€” poor women in the tenements on New York City's Lower East Side â€” information about contraceptive options.

"Sanger [went] to these squalid, crowded homes of these young women bearing many children who are begging her â€” while giving birth â€” for information about contraception," says historian Jill Lepore. "And it [was] illegal for her to give them any information."

Saying "I wish I had done more" about accusations that one of his former assistants had been sexually abusing young boys for more than a decade, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno just confirmed that he will retire at the end of this season.

The 84-year-old Paterno, who holds the record for most wins by a Division I coach, released this statement moments ago:

"I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this case. I grieve for the children and their families, and I pray for their comfort and relief.

Ah, to be a Harvard laboratory mouse. The pay stinks, but the food is delish! Researchers at the venerable school have been serving lab mice tiny organic burgers made with meat from Savenor's Market, where Julia Child bought her steaks.

"It came out looking like a beautiful little mini hamburger," says Rachel Carmody, a graduate student in evolutionary biology at Harvard who cooked up the mini-burgers in Petri dishes.

The Two-Way

7:09 am

Wed November 9, 2011

Cain accuser and longtime government employee Karen Kraushaar once worked as a spokesperson for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. She offered a statement after meeting with the Miami family of Elian Gonzalez in March of 2000.

A few of the developments since our last post about the sexual harassment allegations against Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain â€” who calls them "false, anonymous, incorrect accusations":

The Two-Way

6:15 am

Wed November 9, 2011

Scott Paterno, left, greeted his father â€” Penn State football coach Joe Paterno â€” as the coach arrived at his home, Tuesday evening in State College, Pa. Hundreds of students had gathered to show support for the coach.

Catching up on some of the latest developments in the scandal at Penn State University â€” where former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has been charged with sexually abusing young boys, two university officials have been charged with lying to a grand jury and not alerting police, and there have been calls for legendary coach Joe Paterno to step down because of concern that he didn't do enough to alert authorities to what was allegedly happening:

Conservative activists in the Tea Party want Congress to cut government budget deficits. At the same time, liberal protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement want lawmakers to reduce wealth inequality.

Both goals could be achieved by doing one thing: reducing Social Security payments to retirees, the wealthiest demographic group in the country.

Driving into Huntsville, Ala., it's clear what this city is all about: A giant Saturn V rocket looms ahead in the skyline. This is the city that made the Saturn rockets that took the Apollo astronauts to the moon.

And I'm Renee Montagne. Good morning. We're at the point of the election cycle sometimes called the off-off year. Not many offices were up for grabs but yesterday, some high-profile measures were on state ballots.

Asia

10:01 pm

Tue November 8, 2011

In Pakistan, several high-profile kidnappings reveal the cunning of the captors and confusion among police.

American aid expert Warren Weinstein was seized from his home in Lahore in mid-August. Two weeks later, publishing scion Shahbaz Taseer was snatched from his Mercedes at gunpoint, also in an upscale neighborhood of the Punjab capital.

The trail is leading investigators to Pakistan's militant-dominated tribal areas. North Waziristan, on the lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border, is now believed to be a destination of choice for militant kidnappers.

World

10:01 pm

Tue November 8, 2011

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveils a sample of the third generation centrifuge for uranium enrichment during a ceremony in Tehran on April 9, 2010. Iran says its nuclear ambitions are peaceful.

The International Atomic Energy Agency released its much-anticipated report on Iran's nuclear program, but failed to conclude definitively that the Islamic republic is engaged in a full-scale weapons program.

Still, the U.N. nuclear watchdog's report raised some serious questions about what Iran is really doing in connection with nuclear weapons.

This week, two U.S. airlines will be flying passengers on flights powered by biofuels for the first time. On Monday a Continental flight from Houston to Chicago used a biofuel blend made in part from algae, and Wednesday Alaska Airlines is set to fly passengers using a fuel made in part from cooking oil.

If all goes well, more airlines may start to use alternative jet fuels. But the shift is not without its challenges.

National Security

10:01 pm

Tue November 8, 2011

The man accused of orchestrating the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 will be arraigned Wednesday at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. He is the first Guantanamo detainee to have his case tried under the Obama administration's revamped rules for military commissions, and he could be put to death if he is found guilty.

Conflict In Libya

10:01 pm

Tue November 8, 2011

This abandoned village outside the city of Zintan was populated by pro-Gadhafi families from the Mushashya, a nomadic tribe from southern Libya. Fighters from Zintan, which rebelled against Gadhafi forces, are hoping they won't come back.

In Libya's Nafusa mountains southwest of Tripoli, the sight of abandoned villages and idle fighters hanging onto their weapons gives bleak testament to the fact that not everyone in the country is ready for the violence that overthrew former dictator Moammar Gadhafi to end.

In one windswept mountain village outside the city of Zintan, the only sound is the lonely clatter of a door against the gate of an abandoned house. Burned-out cars and a foam mattress soaked from the rain litter the street; most of the houses look as if they've been looted.

Updated at 2:52 p.m. ET: Wal-Mart issued a statement Wednesday saying its request for partners to provide primary care services was "overwritten and incorrect." The firm is "not building a national, integrated low-cost primary health care platform," according to the statement by Dr. John Agwunobi, a senior vice president for health and wellness at the retailer.

Bingo! With all the television and bowl money it would get, Greece would be solvent again, and the Southeastern Conference would get that big Athens TV market.

You see, everybody talks about how colleges are all switching conferences, but essentially, they all just want to jump to the SEC or whatever best emulates the SEC. It's the Solid South of college football. Once, the South used to control Congress. Now, y'all: the gridiron.

The Two-Way

4:11 pm

Tue November 8, 2011

Former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke came forward Tuesday to take responsibility for his role in leaking a memo used to cast aspersions on a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent who had blown the whistle to Congress about a botched gun-trafficking operation.

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain stood his ground, repeating that the accusations of sexual harassment made against him while he was the head of the National Restaurant Association are "false, anonymous, incorrect accusations."

In a press conference in Arizona, Cain repeated twice, "I have never acted inappropriately with anyone. Period." The former Godfather's Pizza CEO added that the scandal and the media feeding frenzy were not going to push him to quit the GOP presidential race.